Last Flight of the Sparrow
by Mercurie
Summary: Jack Sparrow wasn't made for the gallows. He prefers to go down fighting, defiant to the end. Warning: character death.


Disclaimer: I do not own Jack Sparrow or other components of the film _Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl_. Do not sue me. I have no money. 

**A/N:** This story was lightly influenced by _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner_. Thus the surrealism. In tribute to Jack Sparrow, whom I love and love to mess with:

_Last Flight of the Sparrow_

The sun beat down upon Jack Sparrow's head like a hammer of molten gold. Sweat dripped from his skin, slicking the ship's wheel beneath his hands. He gripped the warm wood, his lifeline, the only thing holding him up and his sole remaining ally. The _Black Pearl_ had not yet abandoned him.

He cast a weary glance over his shoulder. Blue sea met blue sky all around. The world had become a plain of waves beneath an azure bowl, and the sun melted reality into a sticky mess that clung to him with burning fingers. He couldn't remember when he'd last seen land. They had been fleeing south-east for weeks, weeks and longer, the stores running out, the water running out, the sea running out. It had grown hotter than a desert. Mirages haunted the ship where crew members had walked before. 

They had begun to die a week ago, after the last of the water had gone. Gibbs first; Jack could have wept, but exhaustion drained his tears. After that, time picked them off one by one. And by some cosmic irony, he survived. They died, choking on their dry throats, their lips blackened and cracked, skin wrinkled and eyes haggard with the knowledge of death. He watched them fade. He buried them in the sea, and lived. He had bitten his own veins and drunk the blood to survive; he could not give up life without a struggle. 

Now, alone, he flew on in his ship of death, the only living soul on the liquid desert. The _Black Pearl_, the sun, the sea, and Captain Jack Sparrow. 

But no… not the only living soul. There was the other ship. Behind him, growing daily larger and more distinct, came the undaunted _Mercury_, pride of the Royal British Navy. Like a ghost she sailed smoothly over the water, drawing serenely nearer. Filled with men, stores, and confidence, she had come for the last pirate of the Caribbean Sea. 

He vowed wrathfully as he clung to the wheel hour after hour that she should never have him. Jack Sparrow's neck was not meant for the gallows. The sea might take him, or a bullet or a sword, but he would meet death with hands unfettered. Some men the cage of law could not hold, and he was one of them. _Mercury_ had hunted him for endless days, but she would hunt him until the End of Days before he surrendered.

So he told himself, and knew the words were hollow. He could not work the _Pearl_ alone. All day the other ship had been gaining. She would be upon him before nightfall. What, then, for Captain Jack Sparrow's defiance? To the redcoats, to the law-makers and spirit-breakers, he was but another dissolute pirate. They would not allow him, the last menace, the final triumph, to escape them. 

He swore he would fight, but he could hardly stand. He no longer bothered to steer; the wheel held him up and wind drove the ship wherever it chose. He recognized in bitterness that it was his dignity to which he clung. It was an ideal, a wisp of a principle. It was pride.

If he surrendered now, they would take him back to land, perhaps to Port Royal, where he might see Will and Elizabeth one last time.

Jack Sparrow had never known the meaning of the word surrender. He was the man whom no jail could hold; his, the heart no woman could conquer; he the creature of cunning mind and free soul and stubborn resolve. So he sailed on into perdition and cast away regret. 

Sun and wind eroded the hours. Dry lips and parched skin made a specter of the man at the wheel. He dreamed with open eyes and the strength ebbed from his body, but his hands remained firm at the helm. Every hour the pursuit crawled closer, brimming with steel and accusations. He did not perceive it; fiery images blinded him and he relived his life beneath the sun's cruelty. Sultry air lay heavily upon him, rasping in his throat. Each breath was torture, the silence deafening. 

A roar broke through the spell of silence. The ship shuddered, cringed, tossed its captain to the deck. He lay, stunned, sure the heat had grown impatient and smitten him down at last. But no: it was cannon fire that had leveled the proud _Pearl_. Quick on the heels of its predecessor, another blast tore through the ship's ribs. She groaned in anguish, listed to the side, wallowing in the sea. The swift hunter _Mercury_ had caught her at last. 

Cannon fire. Jack Sparrow staggered doggedly to his feet. _All hands to the defense!_ he cried silently. _All hands!_ But there were no more hands, save his own two. A man alone could still load a cannon. He struggled, wavering on the brink of collapse, down the ladder. The cannons waited belowdecks.   

Another ball of metallic fury ripped into the ship's insides. Something shifted and snapped; the _Pearl_ wailed. An explosion followed, but not a cannonball this time. 

The powder barrels. 

They must have burst one by one, the explosions rocking the ailing ship and sending her captain reeling with each blast. Fire engulfed the hull. The ship, on the brink of release, sighed and began to sink into the waves. Flames rose from water; Jack Sparrow stood between the elements. Through the curtain of the inferno, he watched _Mercury_, her crew ready to receive him into custody. If he asked for it. 

The gallows, or the fire.

Jack Sparrow turned his back and began to climb the mast. Strength came from a hidden source for this last effort. His brown arms pulled him effortlessly up to the crow's nest, up to the brilliant sky. A single man, a lone creature, offered in sacrifice to a way of life now dead. Flames below and sun above cast a burning nimbus about him. There he waited, silent and unbroken, for the inevitable.

The soldiers on the ship _Mercury_ watched without speaking as fire devoured the _Black Pearl_ and she descended into the depths. To the last, the man in the crow's nest made no sound. Sheets of flame embraced him like wings, as if he might fly away on blazing feathers in another miraculous escape. But not this time.

_From the sea; of the sea; back to the sea_. 

*******

**A/N:** Yes, well. A bit strange. Feels incomplete somehow. It's not much like the movie at all, the tone and style are entirely different. Overly dramatic, probably. I should try writing something happy…. *further inane grumbling*  


End file.
